An Open Letter to the Forgotten Canadians: To Everyone Who Tried and Still Lost

 An Open Letter to the Forgotten Canadians: To Everyone Who Tried and Still Lost

Dear Fellow Strugglers,

I see you. I know what you’ve been through. I’ve been there too.

You did everything right. You updated your resume, tailored your cover letters, applied to job after job—sometimes hundreds, maybe even thousands. You heard the same lines over and over: "There are plenty of jobs! You just have to try harder." Your family, friends, or even strangers dismissed your struggle, convinced that if you weren’t working, it must be your fault.

But now, the truth is coming to light. We were lied to.

The jobs weren’t there for us. While we were sending out applications and blaming ourselves for every rejection, tens of thousands of people were being brought in under false pretenses—many never even attending the schools they were supposed to. The system was rigged, and we were the ones left out in the cold.

And what has this done to us?

How many of us have sunk into depression, feeling useless and unwanted?

How many turned to fentanyl or other substances, just trying to numb the pain?

How many couldn’t hold on any longer and took their own lives, convinced they had failed when in reality, Canada failed us

Yet, politicians like Pierre Poilievre, who has never known what it’s like to struggle, now want us to wait even longer for pensions. He’s lived comfortably his whole life, rolling in privilege, telling us to "work harder and wait longer." Wait for what? For more years of rejection? More years of stress and uncertainty? How dare they?

And Justin Trudeau, shame on you for allowing this to happen. You opened the floodgates without protecting your own people. Instead of ensuring Canadians had jobs and stability, you let greed dictate policy.

This is not just an immigration issue. This is a systemic betrayal of the very people who built this country, who were born and raised here, who have lived their whole lives here and now find themselves discarded like yesterday’s news.

We need to right this wrong. Lower the pension age to 60. Give people a dignified way to survive. And if that’s not possible, then implement Universal Basic Income (UBI) because we have been royally screwed over by our own country.

We need justice. We need answers. And we need to stop blaming ourselves for a system that was designed to exclude us.

To everyone reading this who has felt hopeless, alone, or invisible—I see you. You are not alone. And we deserve better.

With solidarity,

Tina Winterlik aka Zipolita